Misery Endless
by XsilverXdoeX
Summary: Lupin's reaction when he finds out about the Potters' fate as well as Sirius' supposed  betrayal and incarceration.  Angsty.


_The owls have finally stopped coming._ Just as the thought skims over the surface of my brimming mind, an owl I recognize swoops in the window. The October wind follows him, like Peter Pan's shadow sewn to his tail feathers, swirling through the curtains. He lands on the footboard of the old iron bedstead and holds out his left leg, an envelope dangling from it.

I'm sitting on the edge of the bed, swimming in the haze of sorrow. I lean towards the owl, who knows me. I run my left hand gently down his back, untying the envelope with my right, "Hello, Errol." I say conversationally, "Busy day for owls, hm?"

Errol hoots in reply. I would smile if I was myself. I'm a stranger, though, in a foreign terrain of misery. I can't see the horizon, or the sky. What comes next? I look back at the round amber eyes and Errol sticks his leg out again. I shake my head, "Sorry, Errol. I'm in no state to form a letter." I wave the envelope he's just delivered, "I know what this says." he hoots sympathetically.

I get him something to eat; I doubt I'm the last one Molly and Arthur plan on writing to. I find a piece of parchment and all I can bring my quill to write is, _I already heard, thank you. Remus_

Only when Errol is a tiny blot in the sky do I take my seat again on the bed and pick up Molly and Arthur's letter. All I have to read is the first line. Nausea erupts in me and a hollow ache pounds somewhere deep inside me - is it my heart? - and I begin to shake. The letter falls from my hand and flutters to the stained carpet, the words searing my mind: _Sirius betrayed Lily and James. Potters dead, Sirius to Azkaban, Pettigrew dead._

How many owls have flown into this shabby little apartment to bring me this news? I'll admit I didn't believe at first, until I'd read about fifty accounts saying the same thing. Then I had to believe it. Not accept it, but believe it. I don't need to read the rest of the letter the Weasleys sent. They'll go on to tell me that somehow Harry survived and that Voldemort is gone. Then they'll tell me little Peter wanted revenge and how he chased down Sirius and was no match for him (which we all knew already) and how he and thirteen innocent Muggles were murdered in cold blood. They'll send their condolences. As if ink on parchment can fill the empty gap that has broken within me. Perhaps I am only being ungrateful…

How? That's what I want to ask; how? But the trouble is, I know_exactly_ how. How much of the wizarding world does? It's not a great mystery. The Potters put their trust in Sirius. Sirius betrayed their whereabouts to the monster I thought he considered as foe. Voldemort killed James. He killed Lily. He _tried _to kill Harry. That is the point of the story where everyone asks how. How Harry¾one-year-old Harry Potter¾could possibly have defeated the most powerful dark wizard since Gellert Grindelwald.

Although I desperately want to know how Harry did what so many witches and wizards have died attempting, my _how_ is more…philosophical. How did Sirius - Padfoot, James' best friend, Harry's godfather - do what he did? How was my dear friend as blind as I to Sirius' true loyalties? How do I awake one morning on a day like any other to a room filled with owls telling me that the people I love most in the entire world are dead?

A sigh whispers out of me, a thin tendril of despair. Who have I got now? Merlin's beard, I don't even have an owl. Perhaps I should buy myself an owl. Once more, I might've laughed at this thought, had laughing not been unfathomable. A mighty fine life that owl would have…werewolves don't hurt animals, though, so maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea after all. No, wait, one little problem; money. Where would I get the gold to buy an owl?

I've known sorrow before. I was always the quiet, intellectual, glum Marauder, wasn't I? Even if I hadn't been bitten, it likely still would have been so. If I hadn't been bitten, everything would be different. Dad wouldn't have walked out on mum the way that he did. She denied it until the day she died, but I know I am the reason he left. If I hadn't been bitten, would Harry have defeated Him last night? Would Harry have ever been born? If I had been a normal boy at Hogwarts, old Severus wouldn't have found me out (did Sirius want him to die after all? He doesn't value life as I thought he did) and in subsequent years would his friendship with Lily have survived or perished just the same? And the Marauders…would we have done any 'marauding' if it hadn't been for my so-christened furry little problem? Would Prongs' old Cloak have gotten any use? Prongs wouldn't even have been Prongs. Worm wouldn't have been Worm (although, I daresay we'd've found_some_ unpleasant nickname for him). Padfoot…he never really_was_ Padfoot, now was he?

My thoughts are a thorny circle, never reaching any conclusion and always ending up exactly where they began. Sirius wasn't who I thought he was. All the times we spent together; planning our next Full Moon rendezvous or planning our next attack on Death Eaters, was he against us? In school…he always _was_ closely connected (by blood) to our enemies at the time, Slytherins, but he convinced us that he loathed the link between him and the lineage he came from. Was he feeding the Order's plans to our foes? Was he the reason they got the Longbottoms…the McKinnons…and now the Potters…? Again I feel writhing disgust, as if I'm going to literally vomit, twisting inside me. There were suspicions, well-founded, that their was a traitor in our midst. But I never would have suspected Sirius…clearly, I was blind. And my inability to see the truth has cost me so much…it has cost me _everything…_

I lie back on the lumpy mattress heavily and make the mistake of turning my head to the left. Sirius is looking right back at me; effortlessly handsome and laughing jovially at some joke I no longer remember. His arm is slung over my shoulder…the thought that he has touched me makes me feel filthy. On his other side is James. James trusting him, loving him as the brother never born. And on the end, as always admiring, as always, aspiring but not nearly achieving, is Peter. Peter who was my first friend at Hogwarts and I his. James soon took a liking to me and Sirius put up with us, soon befriending us. No. We weren't friends. We're all laughing in the picture. Every Marauder has a copy…but I'm the only one who's still looking at it.

I turn it down so our laughing faces are flat against the table.

I roll onto my back and another owl flies in. I force myself to sit up, take the letter clenched in its beak and shoo it out the window. Who in the world could possibly think that I don't know yet? I hold the rolled parchment in my hands and look at it. No, I can't look at the words again. I hold one corner between my thumb and forefinger and point my wand at it, "_Incendio."_ I watch in dull satisfaction as the paper is engulfed in flame. The parchment unfurls. Oh, it's from Hagrid. I nearly regret burning it, but as I have read and replied to the last eighteen letters from the half-giant, I can't find it in myself to feel any remorse for this. Not for this. I believe I'm already going over the healthy human quota of remorse. Then again, I haven't been a 'healthy human' for a very long time, have I?

I watch the paper turn to cinders, flaking and falling away, sprinkling the already filthy carpet with what resembles black-grey snow. I blow out the flames and place the small piece of parchment I was holding on the bed. I suppose I've been around Molly Weasley a bit too much because I automatically withdraw my wand again, direct it at the carpet and half-heartedly murmur, "_Scourgify._" the place where the ashes were is suddenly the cleanest spot in my entire run-down apartment. I look at the spotless bit of carpet for a moment and sigh. It all still seems impossible.

Getting to my feet I go to the window. I look at Muggle-London. The street where I live is a rather undeserving example of London, Muggle or Magic. It's just a side street. Vendors frequent the sidewalks although no one willing to buy their goods ever comes round here. Except maybe me. There's a bakery that I go into sometimes, but that little store does such poor business, it's always changing hands. There are other buildings, I don't know what's in them. Some other second-hand apartments like mine, I suppose. Maybe some independent businesses. Who knows, maybe someone on this little street is a Squib or even has magic. I'll never know.

I let go a thick, weary sigh, torn from somewhere in me so sad I don't reckon I'd ever fancy seeing it. I slowly shut the window. I don't need anyone else repeating to me what I already know. And I'll wager the Muggles have noticed the owls flying everywhere in broad daylight when they are considered nocturnal. The clasp on the windows makes a slight scraping clink when I secure it and the flow of brisk October air into the apartment is cut off completely.

With no plans for the day but moping and wallowing, both of which I fervidly despise others doing but feel I have every right to partake of in my current state, I go back to the bed. I lie back on it, hoping that if some foolish bloke sends another owl thinking themselves a Good Samaritan, that that owl will not tap my window endlessly until I allow him inside. I shut my eyes and rub my eyelids with the heels of my hands until little white stars pop behind them.

When I open them again, they fall on the fragment of Hagrid's letter that lays on the bumpy bed. I reach and take it between my fingers. It holds a piece of three separate lines. My heart loops and aches when I read them.

The first; _I should've known. _The second; _Can't be true _The third; _so sad._

Hagrid doesn't know quite how poignant this is. It's how I feel. It's exactly how I feel, as if everywhere I go, there's an invisible Dementor just behind me or as if the entire world is doing all it can to remind me just how guilty and flawed I am and how much it has cost me. I shut my eyes and finally the tears that have been ripping at my insides, the fangs of the aching void, gain the courage to escape. Then I am sobbing.

I can think about it all I want, have nightmares, feel responsible, hate myself and Voldemort and Sirius, care for the Sirius I knew even if it was all a sham. I can do anything in the world, but I cannot change what happened.

And that is misery so vast it is endless.


End file.
